First division

TWO Britons and an American have won science's top prize for discovering how living cells grow, divide and multiply.

Paul Nurse and Tim Hunt of the London-based Imperial Cancer Research Fund have become the first Britons since 1988 to win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. They share the prize with Leland Hartwell, director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

Each of the winners discovered key genes and proteins that orchestrate the growth and division of cellsthe cell cycle. This is such a fundamental process in all plants and animals that their work is important in every field of biology, especially medicine.

Through work on mutant strains of baker's yeast, Hartwell discovered a hundred or so "cell-division cycle" genes. One, called CDC28, triggers the whole process. It was also Hartwell who realised that there are "checkpoints" or delays in the cell cycle while damaged DNA is ...

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